Follow by Email

Thursday, 26 April 2012

The trouble with Christian Eduardo Esquino Nuñez

Christian Eduardo EsquinoNuñez, the lead witness in the case against Cynthia Vanier, is now out of his Mexican jail cell, and he is
apparently threatening to expose secret voice and video recordings of Gregory Gillispie, the American who brokered the aircraft lease for Ms.
Vanier to fly to Libya.

Ms. Vanier, as anyone familiar with
this blog knows, is the Canadian facing charges as the ringleader in a plot to
smuggle SaadiGaddafi, fallen
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s third son, from North
Africa to Mexico,

Mr. EsquinoNuñez
is a curious character. When La politica first became involved with the case regarding
Cynthia Vanier, we visited Ms. Vanier’s parents on the
shores of Lake Chapala, Mexico. One piece of information
that was given to us at that time, and that seemed very odd, concerned the role
of a married couple: “Bertha” and “Ed”.

Ms. Vanier’s parents did not know who these two individuals
were. However, we were informed that Ed was a criminal, and that Bertha – the
best friend of Gabby deCueto (aka
Gabriela Davila Huerta), who now shares a jail cell with
Ms. Vanier in Chetumal, Mexico –
might have planted the fake Mexican voting card on Ms. Vanier.

This card is a key piece of evidence in the case against Ms.
Vanier, as it was on her person when she was arrested on
November 10, 2011, and connects her to a false Mexican identity for one Cinthia Anne MacdonaldGrau,
who opened two bank accounts that were allegedly to be used to funnel cash into
Mexico to support Mr. Gaddafi in his new life.

We now know that Bertha is Bertha Cruz de
la Cruz, and Ed is her husband, Christian Eduardo EsquinoNuñez. Both these individuals are central to the
prosecution’s case against Ms. Vanier and the three other
defendants.

Those other defendants are: Ms. De Cueto,
Mr. Gillispie’s business partner and Bertha’s best friend, who helped broker
aircraft for Ms. Vanier; Pierre Flensborg,
a jet-setting Dane who was a business associate of Ms. De Cueto’s; and José Luis Kennedy Prieto, known as a
document forger, but who was also at one time a police commander of homicide squads in Mexico City and Hidalgo.

Bertha Cruz de la Cruz is relevant
also because she allegedly received an email to her Gmail account from Gabby de Cueto’s Yahoo account that included an attached photocopy of
Saadi Gaddafi’s passport, as well as references to his
family members.

According to a statement Ms. Cruz de la Cruz gave to Mexican
prosecutors, she queried Gabby de Cueto as to why she received the email, and
Gabby then allegedly asked Bertha if she knew of anyone who could put together false
documentation for Gaddafi, his wife, and their young son
and daughter.

Ms. Cruz de la Cruz, law abiding
citizen that she is, apparently told Mexican law enforcement
that she further challenged Ms. De Cueto as to why she
would be asking for that, as it could land them all in a boatload of trouble.

However, the most solid testimony against Cynthia Vanier may come from Mr. Esquino himself.

Mr. Esquino has told the Mexican
government that during a 45 minute car ride on September 20 from Toluca, where Mr. Esquino kept the
aircraft he leased, to Mexico City, Ms. De Cueto and her
business partner Gregory Gillispie spoke of a plot to
bring SaadiGaddafi to Mexico.

This evidence was given by Mr. Esquino
on January 9, 2012 – two months after Ms. Vanier and the
others had been arrested, and almost four months after the alleged conversation.

In fact, that evidence was given to the Mexican authorities
while Mr. Esquino was wanted in Mexico for aircraft
fraud. Mr. Esquino was questioned twice by authorities
about the Vanier case before he was arrested on March 17.

In Mexico, individuals can be detained for 80 days without
charge. Mr. Esquino’s recent release suggests that Mexican authorities are
holding off on criminal charges, perhaps because they consider him to be more
valuable on the outside, from where he can assist them in building the case
against Ms. Vanier and her co-accused.

A plea, a short sentence, and deportation to Mexico

Mr. Esquino is no small time crook. On
January 24, 2005 the Southern District Court of California convicted him of
conspiracy to commit fraud involving an aircraft. Mr. Esquino had pled guilty, and
was sentenced to two years in prison.

When he got out in 2007 he was deported to Mexico, whereupon
he was arrested again, only to walk and assume the name “Ed Nuñez”. Nuñez is Mr. Esquino’s matronymic – his
mother’s maiden name. Though in Mexico the matronymic is
formally carried at the end of one’s name, it is rarely used exclusively. In
effect, Mr. Christian Esquino had assumed another
identity as Ed Nuñez without technically breaking the law.

Sources familiar with Mr. Esquino’s legal troubles in the
United States have told La politica that the fraud charge was the low-hanging fruit –
it was an easy conviction, which could then assure deportation upon his release.

But there were real victims. Court documents show Mr. Esquino bilked four parties out of a total of $435,000.00.

Mr. Esquino had an aircraft financing
company, Wing Financial, which operated out of the same address as his
better-known firm, Starwood Management, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Wing Financial, which employed both Mr. Esquino and his sister-in-law, Bertha’s sister Norma Gonzalez
(aka Norma Cruz de la Cruz), was embroiled in
financial and legal troubles before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
in the State of Nevada on February 2, 2010.

Interestingly, Mr. Esquino’s sister-in-law was willing to
take the fall: Norma Gonzales is named as a “Managing Member” on the petition,
but Mr. Esquino is nowhere to be seen.

The trail of tears in this filing is long and soggy: ten plaintiffs, both businesses and individuals, claimed a total of
$5,520,000.00 against Wing Financial. The real number is likely higher: two of
the individuals placed unknown amounts, claiming assets that were “unliquidated
disputed”.

One of the business plaintiffs was Pacific Coast Forecasting
(the company was sold in March 2010), which was on the hook for $250,000.00. The company
deserves some due for perseverance: ten months later, on December 2, 2010,
Pacific Coast Forecasting placed a lien of just over
$15,000 on Mr. Esquino’s other company, Starwood
Management.

As well, on February 11, 2010, a man named Hugo Alvarez
cited Norma Gonzalez, Wing Financial, and Christian Esquino
as defendants in a suit regarding a property foreclosure
in San Diego, California, where Mr. Esquino lived before
his incarceration.

After Mr. Esquino’s release from prison he
was not permitted into the United States. However, he appears to have continued
to conduct business in the United States, and to be using his sister-in-law to
front for him via Wing Financial, just as he used his wife Bertha to run the
Mexican side of his aircraft leasing business while he was in prison north of
the border.

Interestingly,
on March 17, 2010, which was about a month after bankruptcy was declared, a temporary protective order was placed by BarnardoCárdenasCota on 13 aircraft owned
by Wing Financial. CárdenasCota
has been linked to the “loss” of ten million pesos (approximately $760,000)
related to the construction of a sports complex in Los Mochis,
a coastal city in nothernSinaloa,
Mexico.

Esquino Nuñez enters the picture - and moves to the foreground

And as a curious aside, included in the 13 planes was a jet
owned by Jasper Knabb, ex- Chief Executive Officer of
Pegasus Wireless Corp. Wing Financial acted as the shell company that financed
Mr. Knabb’s Gulfstream II. In July of last year Mr. Knabb pleaded guilty to securities fraud related to a $25
million scheme to sell shares for bad debt, with the proceeds then shunted over
to Mr. Knabb, his family, and friends.

Mr. Esquino’s legal troubles are far from over, despite his
release from jail in Mexico. He recently had two planes seized:
one in Arizona, and the other in Monterrey, Mexico.

On April 18 his still-active US-based company, Starwood Management, filed suit against the United States
Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration for forfeiture and
penalties, presumably in the hopes of getting his plane back.

And now he is upping the ante by promising more damning evidence
against Mr. Gillispie.

What is he doing?

In La politica’s
opinion, he is promising the Mexican authorities he can deliver them a
conviction, in the hopes of buying his freedom.

This is a huge case in Mexico. President Cardenas himself
has put the credibility of his administration on the line, having claimed that
the arrest of Ms. Vanier and others is proof that Mexico,
the United States, and Canada have a successful security partnership.

We don’t yet know the whole truth of how this alleged plot
saw the light of day, but one thing is certain: the cat is out of the bag, and
now it must be fed.

(NB – No information
on this blog post derives from interviews with individuals in Mexico, including
the defence team, which has yet to depose Mr. Esquino.
This content is based exclusively on third parties outside of Mexico, court
documents, and La politica’s own investigations.)(TE Wilson is the author of Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel.)

Twitter: @TimothyEWilson

Email: lapoliticaeslapolitica [at] gmail [dot] com

N.B.: If you are having difficulty submitting to the e-mail feed at
the top of this page, press "enter" on your keyboard instead of the
"submit" button.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Podcast: Notes From The Underground

In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.

Mezcalero, a Detective Sánchez novel

Bicultural and transgender, detective Ernesto Sánchez seeks a missing Canadian woman on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Moving uneasily in a world where benign tourism co-exists with extreme violence, he becomes a pawn in a shadowy power-play between corrupt police and drug cartels. Forced to make hard choices – desperate, wounded, and friendless – Sánchez takes refuge in the lawless mountains of Oaxaca. And discovers his fate.

“Wilson’s Mezcalero is a real-pager turner…While the milieu of Wilson’s novel is reminiscent of the hard-boiled tradition, his creation of P.I. Ernesto Sánchez is original, and helps Wilson push the boundaries with respect to genre. Sánchez is a hard-hitting private eye, but Wilson also depicts him as struggling with many of the issues that transgender individuals typically face; in this manner, Wilson creates both a riveting mystery and timely story about navigating life as a gender nonconforming individual.”

“Mezcalero is a remarkable read, with sustained suspense, surprise explosions of poetry and violence, and some new answers to old questions...Wilson understands something about violence and gender that I have never encountered before: that women’s violence is perhaps the most feared. Sanchez’s womanly violence in his manly body is a mystery revealed, a truth told that we suspected all along. This is a profoundly feminist book. The women in the book are the power brokers, the activators of action; even the most oppressed empleada is a container of her own complete power. Mezcalero is deftly plotted, and deploys an acrobatic narrative that is, frankly, exhilarating. Sanchez has a lot to teach us. Wilson, too.”

Janette Platana, author of A Token of My Affliction (2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize; 2016 English Language Trilium Book Award finalist).

“T.E. Wilson’s Mezcalerois, as a novel, a tacit consequence of the author’s real-world work as a reporter/journalist in Mexico. His work is rich in essence, and rich in detail, of how widespread organized crime and corruption permeate Mexican society. Highly recommended. This is great, well-grounded fiction.”

Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, Senior Research Scholar in Law and Economics, Columbia University, and President of the Citizens’ Action Institute (Instituto de Acción Ciudadana).

“T.E. Wilson has crafted a terrific, terrifying and yet sensationally witty portrait of modern Mexico. Detective Sánchez is irresistible. You won’t soon forget his journey through that unpredictable jungle that is Mexico today.”